Should you vaccinate your 5 to 11 y.o. kids against Covid-19?

Discussion in 'Coronavirus Pandemic Discussions' started by CenterField, Nov 3, 2021.

PF does not allow misinformation. However, please note that posts could occasionally contain content in violation of our policies prior to our staff intervening. We urge you to seek reliable alternate sources to verify information you read in this forum.

  1. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2020
    Messages:
    9,738
    Likes Received:
    8,378
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    The FDA authorized Pfizer's pediatric doses of their Covid-19 mRNA vaccine for kids 5 to 11. The CDC is considering it this week. If approved by the CDC, by week's end parents of kids 5 to 11 will be able to vaccinate their children. Should they?

    Pros for vaccination:

    94 children ages 5 to 11 have died of COVID-19 in the USA since the pandemic began, and 8,300 have needed to be hospitalized.

    By early October, 2,034 kids between 6 and 11 developed Covid-19-caused MIS-C (an auto-immune, multi-organ, severe inflammatory syndrome that usually requires ICU hospitalization). Between 1% and 2% of these have died.

    Risk of "Long Covid" is 4.4% in a study at 5 weeks (only 1.8% > 56 days), and 9.8% in another one among kids aged 2-11 with confirmed infections, with symptoms that lingered from 5 weeks up to months such as fatigue, muscle aches, breathing problems or trouble concentrating in school (British data from the UK Office of National Statistics).

    Vaccinating kids reduces the odds of their parents and grandparents catching the disease, and decreases community transmission.

    Cons for vaccination:

    The odds for kids this age of dying from Covid-19 or MIS-C are about 1 in 2 million. That's four times less likely than being struck by lightning over the period of one year.

    The age group least subject to severe Covid-19 is precisely the 5 to 11 group. Younger than 5 it's a bit more dangerous, and older than 11 is more dangerous.

    More than half of kids this age have no symptoms and no sequelae whatsoever if they catch Covid-19.

    Myocarditis with mRNA vaccines in young people: hasn't been seen in kids that received the half-dose pediatric Pfizer vaccine in a small trial. But it did occur in 70 of each million kids aged 16 or 17 who received the full dose, adult Pfizer vaccine. All cases, though, were transient and did not seem to cause any permanent damage (and the virus itself causes myocarditis more often than that). On the other hand, the Pfizer pediatric trial with a few thousand cases may not have had a sufficient number of subjects to find myocarditis, so it's not excluded that it will happen when the vaccine is given to millions.

    Certain parents might balk at giving to their children a vaccine that has existed for only one year. While I personally don't fear unexpected long-term adverse reactions (given that by now, with the vaccine given to 3 billion people, they'd have showed up already), I can respect parents who hesitate more.

    ---------------

    So, what's the conclusion?

    I don't think it is clear-cut.

    I'd address it this way:

    If your child is not obese, doesn't have co-morbidities, and every adult in your family is vaccinated and not immunocompromised, whether or not you vaccinate your kid age 5 to 11 is sort of optional. It is unlikely that this half-dose pediatric Pfizer vaccine will harm them though, so those parents who are really germophobes and don't want their kids to face even the low risks mentioned above, might want to do it. Likely the biggest risk faced by kids this age, is the 4.4% to 9.8% risk of Long Covid; this alone might justify vaccination, for some parents.

    Now, if your child is obese or has severe co-morbidities, or you have in your household fragile adults (say, a grandparent who is immunocompromised and doesn't respond well to vaccines), then you probably should vaccinate your kid.

    -----------------

    My own children are young adults. They are both fully vaccinated.

    If I had a healthy child aged 5 to 11, I'd vaccinate him or her. My main motivator would be the 4.4% to 9.8% stat for Long Covid. But I can perfectly understand parents who won't want to do that, and will prefer to take their chances (even the Long Covid stat still shows that from 24 out of 25 (if it's close to 4%) to 9 out of 10 (if it's close to 10%) kids won't have any problem).

    While I firmly believe that adults who decline the vaccine are making an incredibly boneheaded decision, in the case of kids 5 to 11 I don't feel as strongly about it. Again, if the child is obese or has co-morbidities or lives in a household with a vulnerable adult, then it is more clear-cut that the child should be vaccinated.

    I hope that the above is helpful if some of our members here are parents of kids this age, and happen to read this thread.

    Some references for those willing to explore the issue in more detail:

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.05.21256649v2

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.26.21256110v1

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.28.21257602v1

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.07.21256539v1

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01935-7
     
  2. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2020
    Messages:
    9,738
    Likes Received:
    8,378
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Latest numbers:

    According to CDC statistics, 65,040 children nationwide have been hospitalized for COVID-19 and 793 have died. This applies to all children, not only the 5-11. 5,000 have had MIS-C.
     
  3. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2020
    Messages:
    9,738
    Likes Received:
    8,378
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    This is a very good editorial by a pediatrician from the excellent Massachusetts General Hospital. She advocates for the vaccine more than I do, and makes an interesting point: children are 75% more likely to die of Covid than of a car accident. All parents want their kids to wear seatbelts, so why not the vaccine? She also dispels fears of long-term consequences of the vaccine and highlights long term consequences of catching even a mild case of Covid-19.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/op...e-covid-19-vaccine-their-children/6236720001/
     
  4. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2018
    Messages:
    17,371
    Likes Received:
    9,805
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Children diagnosed with Covid are more likely to die from Covid than a random child from a car accident. Random children are 3-12 times more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid, depending on what definition is used for “child”.

    But I do agree the risk to children from Covid is greater than the risk from vaccination. All three of us (you, me and the pediatrician) can agree on that! :)
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2021
  5. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2020
    Messages:
    9,738
    Likes Received:
    8,378
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Good point about random Covid and random car accidents.

    For the sake of pediatric care, generally "children" are the humans aged from 0 to 18. In my original post I did make a difference between children 5-11 and 12-18. She probably didn't.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2021
    557 likes this.
  6. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2015
    Messages:
    22,694
    Likes Received:
    11,760
    Trophy Points:
    113
    One should inject his children only if he wants them to become sick and/or die. Inject them if you want them to suffer cardiomyopathy and other diseases brought by the spike protein.

    Yes, we live in a strange new world.
     
  7. Scott

    Scott Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2008
    Messages:
    5,268
    Likes Received:
    845
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Eleuthera likes this.
  8. Betamax101

    Betamax101 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2011
    Messages:
    5,100
    Likes Received:
    779
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Ludicrous spam already addressed and ignored! Isn't the conspiracy section enough for you that you now need to pollute the main forum with your hogwash?

    Colossally ignorant circular reasoning.
     
    Capt Nice likes this.
  9. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2015
    Messages:
    22,694
    Likes Received:
    11,760
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Colossally corrupted regurgitation of pharma and medical industrial complex talking points, as usual.
     
  10. Joe knows

    Joe knows Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 25, 2021
    Messages:
    13,465
    Likes Received:
    9,921
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    My kids got COVID and I definitely don’t believe I would ever make them get vaccinated for it. I don’t vaccinate them for the flu either and their symptoms during their time of getting COVID were less than my side effects from the vaccine. I won’t get my kids vaccinated. Period. If they try and force kids to get vaccinated I will pull them out and get them home schooled. I do have the means to do so.
     
    Professor Peabody and Eleuthera like this.
  11. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2020
    Messages:
    9,738
    Likes Received:
    8,378
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    As per my OP, your position is defensible, given the various Cons I mentioned, and called it optional. So you don't want to vaccinate them; that is fine. Now the one thing I'd disagree a bit (although of course it's your decision, not mine) would be to pull them out of school to get them homeschooled in case their school mandates the vaccines. This, for three reasons:

    1. For how long will you do this? Covid-19 is likely to be here to stay (endemic), and the Covid-19 vaccine is highly likely to make the list of mandatory vaccines for enrollment that elementary, middle, high school, colleges, and graduate schools will require. Will you home-school your kids for the duration of their education? Will you only allow them to attend online colleges which are generally of low quality and their diplomas are not taken seriously by anybody? Most likely when they turn adults and you can no longer control them, they will take the vaccine anyway in order to enroll in better colleges and graduate schools, and will think "silly Dad hindered our education for years for fear of this really harmless vaccine" which then will make its way into their bodies anyway.

    2. Kids need socialization skills. Attending school in person has numerous advantages for their psychosocial development. Any pediatrician will tell you that. When specialists were for opening schools again after pandemic lockdowns, they quoted numerous detrimental issues for the kids who couldn't attend school in person, including an increased rate of suicides.

    3. While like I said I respect your decision because of all the Cons I cited and the very low risk stats I listed (a kid dying of Covid-19 is 4 times less likely than dying of a lightning strike over the period of one year), on the other hand, the half-dose Pfizer vaccine for kids seems to be utterly harmless. So, making such a big decision that will deprive them of socialization and may impact on their educational possibilities for years (and decades) to come, just to avoid giving to them a rather utterly harmless vaccine, seems to be a bit disproportional.

    So, again, it's your decision, but in your shoes, I'd not give the kids the vaccine for now, seeing it as unnecessary, but if their school moved to require it, then I'd give it to them since it is utterly harmless and would avoid the socialization issues mentioned above.

    By the way, if your issue is ideological, school vaccination mandates are State-driven, have nothing to do with the Feds, and ALL red states have such mandates in place (as a matter of fact, all 50 states have it). This is not just a blue vs. red issue. It's simply a medical, public health issue.
     
  12. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    May 15, 2017
    Messages:
    34,609
    Likes Received:
    11,196
    Trophy Points:
    113
    A lot of Red states have a lot of hypocrisy. For example, the governor of Texas pushed public school children to get the very controversial Gardasil vaccine. (which I believe was very wrong) This was before the coronavirus pandemic.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    May 15, 2017
    Messages:
    34,609
    Likes Received:
    11,196
    Trophy Points:
    113
    On the other hand, your side was impeding their socialization skills by continuing to require them to wear masks, long after most of the pandemic had subsided.
    Rather hard to socialize when your voice is muffled and other kids cannot see most of your face or facial expressions.

    The risk is not only death.

    A moms twitter timeline going from pro-vax to pro-choice

    This mom found out the hard way.

    EmilyJo
    "I have to pay for my son's hospital bill and endless cardiology follow ups because he got the post vaccine myocarditis. That's not free."​
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  14. kreo

    kreo Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2008
    Messages:
    8,791
    Likes Received:
    798
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    doctors are making money profiting from our sickness
    what is a point to even read that BS.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  15. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    May 15, 2017
    Messages:
    34,609
    Likes Received:
    11,196
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I remember there being another thread somewhere that linked to statistics suggesting that random children had a higher chance of developing severe myocarditis if they were vaccinated than the risk of dying from the virus.

    Both of which were low, but we are talking about comparative risk.

    The death rate of normal children caused by the virus is so low that a vaccine might do these children more harm than good.

    That leaves me to wonder if this FDA decision is really for the wellbeing of the children, or if it is based on a theory that children being vaccinated will lead to lower infection and death rates for older people.
    That sounds like the ultimate form of collectivism. Force people to be injected with something that is not good for them but is for the supposed benefit of society.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  16. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2020
    Messages:
    9,738
    Likes Received:
    8,378
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    My side? My only side is science's.
    Risk of myocarditis: much, much, much, much bigger from the virus itself (up to 45.8% in the Ohio State University study of young and healthy college athletes with mild and asymptomatic infection, while for the vaccine, it's a handful of cases per million, generally milder and more transient).
    Yes, there is a very small risk of myocarditis. It sucks for those who get it and is not mild and transient. I never denied that. But it is statistically very small and much smaller than the risk of myocarditis that the virus itself causes. No brainer.
     

Share This Page